Philip sat down heavily, as heavily as one could in the low gravity. Very slowly, as though the simple act pained him, he turned on his screen. He did not need to tell it what to show, he had been watching the Earth almost continuously for the past several months.

He sat in his darkened quarters watching the thin, unsuspecting crescent Earth. Hour long seconds passed, and dawn slowly came to England. He thought it odd that in all the time he had sat and watched Earth, he had never noticed England. He was English, but only because he parents had been born and lived in overcrowded London before they immigrated to Luna. Philip had traveled all through the solar system, but he had never been to the Earth. Everyone told him that he was not missing anything. True, there were the Pyramids, and Stonehenge, and the Moai of Easter Island, but virtual reality was better. There were no crowds, panhandlers, pickpockets, and you could breathe the air.

(to be continued)